Leadership for a Community Under Challenge

Reading from a Distance – to Understand and Follow Paul writes to Timothy in c. 67 after 2 yrs house-arrest in Rome, travel to Spain and back to Aegean area. After Rome’s fire in 64, Nero’s slaughter of Christians in Rome, made it illegal to be a Christian in the Roman empire. Paul urges them to stay engaged by Faith-Gospel but to pray for emperor and for quiet life with honor. Christians vulnerable to accusation and execution. We read from our modern post-Christendom, individualism, freedom, more ignored than physically endangered. Our tradition often reads this text as a check-list of laws for church elders. Challenges in crossing centuries: Givens of Greco-Roman society (1) Patriarchy in law (2) Honor- shame culture based in evaluation of others, (3) Patronage, (4) Polytheism. Christian faith was threatened on all these fronts. People breathed this given reality as they organized life.

Why to Timothy and Titus, who’ve work with Paul 15+ yrs in difficult situations. Don’t they know? Why should overseers be married? Paul earlier (1 Cor 7) urged staying unmarried, like himself. Why so much about accusation, conflict, honor and so little about spiritual gifts as earlier. Why must pagans speak well of the overseer? Who is the “accuser” (diabolos, devil, human)? To understand the language, it helps to understand what’s at stake, what Paul is trying to do. Paul knows Timothy and Titus know the spiritual gifts needed for leadership (Rm 12, 1Cor 12...). He focuses on particular needs for leadership in the troubled churches in Ephesus and Crete.

Men & Women Learning to Pray

Praying for a Quiet, Active Life Under a Threatening Empire. Reading scripture challenges our imagination and empathy. Or does it? Is Paul writing to his co-worker Timothy and instructing him by stating the ideal arrangements of the church? Nero began persecution of Christians in Rome after fire. No systematic official persecution. But being a Christian was illegal and anyone could bring accusation. Permission to kill. Hard vulnerability. What does a community do? Still pray for the emperor? Withdraw from public life? How can we fulfill our principal mission? How can we live by the Gospel in a world of honor and shame. There was also the vivid danger of a Heresy that focused on myths and speculation instead of Faith. Semi-Gnostic withdrawal: We are those who know our Divine inner reality. The physical is corrupt. Avoid marriage and giving birth to more flesh. Women, young widows were especially attracted. Men, fairly simple. Pray for emperor and quiet life. But stay quiet: Don’t show anger, dispute.

Worship to Embrace a World

Being True to the Gospel under Powerful Threats. Reading scripture challenges our imagination and empathy, to put ourselves back in the situation of the writer and readers and hear the words as they heard them. Scripture is more than that, but it begins there. This text can seem bland or obsequious when read from a comfortable setting in modern times. But it is a text that affirms God’s heart expressed in worship in a time of vast uncertainty and threat, both from powers and divergent teaching. Put yourself in Ephesus, Roman provincial capital, about 3 years after Nero killed Christians in Rome after a great fire. [Tacitus] Things had been hard, but now the empire has given permission to denounce Christians and execute them. Some want to turn inward to become a group that doesn’t engage the world but focuses on special knowledge, speculation, and myth. Paul challenges Timothy to guide the community in prayer precisely for their fiercest enemies. What does it mean to Pray for All People and for the Emperor? Rome’s empire and politics were highly stratified. Christian communities had no ordinary power. They were too different to be incorporated into Rome’s “tolerant” paganism. But they could have railed against it. Instead, Paul draws on Jesus’ teaching to urge God’s inclusive vision.

A Broken Sinner, Called by God

Paul’s Guidance for Timothy in Difficult Times The setting is after the times described in Acts. Paul has been in Rome. Perhaps traveled to Spain. Now back in the area of Greece and Asia Mino, as he never expected. Dealing with problems in Crete and Ephesus in perhaps 66-68. Perhaps drafted by a co-worker. (1Pt 5:12). Paul has a rich relationship with Timothy, beginning in Lystra about 20 yrs earlier, 1st journey. Mother Eunice, grandmother Lois converted. Timothy, with gift, joins Paul on 2nd journey. Timothy, Paul’s emissary to Macedonia and Corinth. Dealing with persecution, challenges. The Engagement of Faith versus the Withdrawal of Speculation Things have changed. Nero is emperor. After fire in Rome. Beginning of execution of Christians. Many discouraged, withdrawing (Heb 12:4, 12). Paul had experienced the arbitrary violence of Roman magistrates. Now, no official ban, but clear permission to harass and execute. It’s important to grasp the effect of the threat of execution. Paul wants them to live exemplary lives serving and loving all so that opponents won’t be able to say anything bad about them.

Leadership among New Testament Christians

Romans 12:4-8, 1 Timothy 3:1-13; Cf. Titus 1:5-9

Developing Leadership in Early Christian Communities
The NT has a range of descriptions for leadership in the early communities of believers. There is an interplay between everyday and church language(episkopos= supervisor, overseer, into “bishop”) (presbyteros= elder, later transmuted into priest) (diakonos = servant, deacon).
Jerusalem: apostles, elders, presided over by James, Jesus’ brother. Antioch: prophets and teachers. Paul appointed new converts as “elders” (Act 14:23). Philippi used the language of supervisors/overseers and servants (bishops and deacons). Many assemblies were evidently led by those in whose house they met (Mary, Lydia, Priscilla and Aquila, Titius Justus, Chloe). Paul usually describes leadership in terms of gifts of grace (charisma) with a range of functions (Rm 12). He never speaks of elders till 1 Timothy and Titus, near the end of his life.
Paul’s Instructions to Timothy and Titus.
In our own tradition, the descriptions of elders in 1Tim and Titus have often been the law, a kind of checklist, discussed and debated but controlling. We looked for a binding pattern and these texts were explicit enough to override descriptions of leadership in other letters.
It is important to ask what Paul intends in these texts. They’re very important as they show Paul dealing very explicitly with situations in Ephesus and Crete. What are we to learn?